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Thank you Chairman Sir for giving me the opportunity. I want to attract the attention of the Ministry of Water Resources. My constituency Alipurduar in located in north Bengal and has many big rivers. During monsoon these areas are flooded and specially the tea gardens face a huge economic loss. I want to urge the Ministry to take steps to prevent such losses in future.
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I want to ask the Hon. Minister how many open cost projects had been outsourced by the ECL in the last three years, and what was the target of production in those OCPs. How many projects in coal mines are running behind their target production in the country?
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Sir, I am grateful that you have given me the chance to speak with respect of the GST Bill. Sir, West Bengal fought hard to preserve and protect cooperative federalism in the process of the formulation of the GST. It also fought uncompromisingly on fiscal autonomy of all states of the nation on matters of GST. This was the hallmark of West Bengal that is so visible in many parts of the Bills presented to us in the Parliament.
As Chairman of the Empowered Committee, the West Bengal Finance Minister was instrumental in bringing about a broad consensus amongst states on single control in the hands of the State below Rs 1.5 crore turnover of small business in its meeting in the great city Calcutta many months ago. I believe the honourable Union Finance Minister Mr Jaitley was a witness to this consensus amongst States that had not been seen even before. Such was a seminal role played by West Bengal in protecting cooperative federalism and fiscal autonomy of the states at many such occasions in the course of formulation of this GST Bill.
Our leader and the present Chief Minister of the State of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, had in-principle supported the concept of GST as early as 2009 in our party-manifesto. The idea was to usher in a strong and cohesive indirect tax regime that creates a single market for all trade and industry that is beneficial for the common man and small traders and enterprises.
A draft GST Bill was circulated in the month of September, 2016 which had many clauses that were not in the fullest interest of the States, common man and small traders and enterprises. But, through the deliberations of the GST Council, a number of ideas were thrashed out and I believe West Bengal engaged uncompromisingly in a spirit of cooperative federalism and fiscal autonomy of the States.
West Bengal took the lead and ensured that the Constitution Amendment on GST incorporates the commitment of the Central Government to give full compensation to the States on account of any loss due to GST for a period of five years. The Compensation Act has also been design keeping in mind the mandate of the 122nd amendment of the Constitution and this will ensure that no State in the country will suffer any financial loss due to GST.
Our state has always stood up for the marginalised and needy, small traders and manufacturers who provide the bulk of the employment; the industrial sector have been given due regard in the new GST Law. In this spirit, West Bengal pushed hard for the GST threshold to be raised to Rs 20 lakh turnover. So that small and tiny business are kept out of the purview of the GST.
A composition scheme has also been offered for small traders and manufacturers upto an annual turnover of Rs 50 lakh. This composition scheme for manufacturers is a new feature that will help protect small and new manufacturers, specially in the MSME sector. West Bengal stood firm on this new feature which will benefit lakhs of small businesses and make tax compliance much easier.
Additionally, in order to ensure least disturbance and to provide a single interface so that the assessee does not have to face more than one authority, the concept of cross-empowerment has been introduced in the law. The State Governments and the Central Government will empower the officers of the other Governments, under the respective Acts, the assessee has to go to only one office and deal with only one authority. Apart from this, in order to ensure that small traders do not face any problems in working with the new law, 90 per cent of the assessees of both goods and services below a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore have been kept exclusively with the State Governments.
The purpose of GST was to get rid of multiplicity of taxes and the related cascading effect and to unify different taxes into a single entity. Firstly, the ill-effects of inflation can be scuttled to a large extent. Adding to this, this removal of multiple tax structures means a reduction in the cost of compliance, the benefit of which should finally pass down to the consumer.
The entire structure of GST has been created on the premise that the common man must benefit from the unification of taxes, and therefore it is necessary that the rate structures of different goods and services are adjusted so as to reduce inflation and also the prices of goods of mass consumption, so that the average Indian benefits from this path-breaking enactment.
Another important benefit of the new Goods and Services Tax is the boost to ease of doing business. A common law and standardised treatment of taxable entities with the special feature of full set of tax liability incurred being transferrable throughout the nation means that businesses do not have to think in terms of sales and can compete on cost-effective and competitive products that can compete in international markets and benefit the common man at the same time. It is expected that such a major reform in the structure of indirect taxation will not only help curb inflation but will also have a very positive effect on the growth of GDP. It is hoped the one country-one tax regime will result in growth in all sectors boosting both rural and urban economies in this nation.
Having said so, even then, we have concerns in a few areas which I would now like to point out.
Number one: while the spirit of, and the law on GST is sound, with both the States and the Centre having played a role in ensuring that a sound legislation is in place, there are still some areas of concern as far as the implementation is concerned.
Number two: considering the scale of the reform, it is imperative that sufficient time be given to build up the structures required to ensure the proper implementation of the GST law, we should not rush through the preparation as that is bound to give rise to small but crucial errors which may hamper the implementation of the law. We need to look at the experiences of other nations and learn from the mistakes made there so that we can implement the law in a proper manner.
Number three: another area of concern is the rate structure itself. The process of treatment of rates for different goods and services is yet to be started. Unless the industry is informed about the rates and sufficient time is given, it will not be possible for them to modify their ERPs and systems well in time to meet the deadlines. Therefore it is necessary that the rate treatment process be completed quickly so that industry in general has reasonable time to prepare.
Number four: another area of concern is the preparation of the GST Network – the GSTN. The GSTN is the core system which links all the States and the Centre with the assessees and is pivotal to the implementation of this goods and services tax system. This is one system that cannot afford to fail as its failure will lead to a collapse of the entire indirect tax system of the nation. Therefore it is necessary to get all the models of the GSTN prepared and tested as quickly as possible so that the assessees and the industries have enough time to train up their personnel to gear up their systems.
A completely e-based indirect taxation system means that even the smallest player has to be on board without which the input tax credit (ITC) chain and linkage will be lost. The small businesses must be given adequate time to adapt themselves to this completely new system.
This is a complex fiscal reform. State and Centre together in a federal polity must take appropriate quantum of time which will be sustainable and successful. I will request the Hon. Finance Minister, through you, that we should not rush for this. Look into the defects once again. Do not rush for July 1 deadline. We have time till September 1. The arenas which have been discussed still have lacunae; errors are there which may make it difficult for implementation. These arenas should be covered and discussed and necessary amendments should be brought.
Overall the goods and service tax enactments are set to usher in an area of a higher compliance, efficient taxation, reduce inflation and better growth. It is important that the implementation is also made by both Centre and State in the true spirit of cooperative federalism helping build the nation together. That should be the spirit. No one should ask for only credit, we have all done this together.
Thank you, Sir.
Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee today said in the Lok Sabha that “Bengal fought hard to preserve and protect cooperative federalism in the process of the formulation of the GST”. He was speaking during a discussion of the GST Bills in Parliament.
In his speech he highlighted the proactive role taken by the Finance Minister of Bengal, who is the Chairman of the Empowered Committee. “Bengal Finance Minister was instrumental in bringing about a broad consensus amongst states on single control in the hands of the State below Rs 1.5 crore turnover of small business in its meeting in the great city Calcutta many months ago,” he said.
He reiterated that Mamata Banerjee had in-principle supported the concept of GST as early as 2009 in our party-manifesto. Kalyan Banerjee said, “Bengal engaged uncompromisingly in a spirit of cooperative federalism and fiscal autonomy of the States.”
He cautioned the government against rushing ahead with the legislation; he said steps must be taken to make the system fully error free or else the whole indirect taxation system would collapse. He pitched for an e-based taxation system and said industry must be given sufficient time to prepare themselves for the new system.
Kalyan Banerjee also reminded the government that GST is the result of the hard work by all and no one should claim credit for it alone.
Also speaking on the issue, Saugata Roy cautioned the government against the “technological nightmare” that GSTN could bring and asked the government not to hurry. “If there will be any breakdown in the server, all over the country GST will go flat. So, Sir, I want the Government to be very careful. Government has said that they will train 60,000 officers for this job. For that, at least six months are necessary,” he said.
He also reminded the government that prices should not rise during the transition period. He wanted to know why the government was in a hurry o pass GST when the rates of individual commodities have not yet been decided. He wanted to know from the Centre where would the extra money come from to compensate the States.
Click here to read the full transcript of Kalyan Banerjee’s speech
Click here to read the full transcript of Saugata Roy’s speech
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Madam, an incident happened yesterday on board the Rajdhani Express bound for Sealdah. Many passengers started vomiting after consuming the food served on the train for dinner. They became unwell.
Passengers travelling in B-8, B-9, B-10 compartments demonstrated at Asansol station regarding the poor quality of food served on train. One passenger lodged a complaint at Sealdah station. One official of Eastern Railways said incidents like this happen very often.
I want to ask the Hon. Minister for how long will incidents like this happen? For how long will passengers have to bear the brunt? If this is the condition of Rajdhani Express, I wonder what is the situation in other trains.
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Thank you, Hon. Deputy Speaker Sir, for allowing me to speak on The Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017. The Amendment in the Bill is to strengthen the data collection mechanism in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 was enacted to facilitate the collection of economic, social, scientific and environmental aspects. The Act enacted covered whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir.
Similarly Jammu and Kashmir State Legislature enacted the Jammu and Kashmir Collection Statistics Act, 2010. The Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 and Jammu and Kashmir Collection Statistics Act, 2010 falling in the Union List has created a legislative vacuum. Moreover, concrete jurisdiction to be exercised by the Centre in Jammu and Kashmir has not been provided.
The Amendment is intended to address the vacuum which will help the social upliftment of the people residing in Jammu and Kashmir. But it should be taken care that implementation of this legislation there should not be in conflict with the setup of Jammu and Kashmir’s collection of data and input of statistics.
The Bill stipulates the appointment of nodal officer at the Centre and State to effectively coordinate and supervise the data collection activities for avoiding unnecessary duplication.
On behalf of my Party, I am welcoming the Bill. I suggest to incorporate a provision into the proposed Bill; there should be a time frame of furnishing data or statistics and it has to be made binding on all because the current status of statistics of some departments with the regard of adequacy, timeliness and reliability are far from the satisfactory. Sometimes the advanced estimates are made simply on the basis of visual estimate until the final results are available, which is almost one year later. Only rough estimates are supplied, which have been the reason of sustainable revision in the estimated.
Coming from the State of West Bengal, it makes me proud that Indian Statistical Institute is an academic institution of national importance as recognised by 1959 Act of Indian Parliament. Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, the founder of ISI, was deeply influenced by the wisdom and guidance of Rabindranath Tagore and Bijendra Nath Shil. Under his leadership the institution initiated and promoted the statistics with natural and social science to advance the role of statistics. The 2nd Fifth Year Plan of India was the brain-child of Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.
Timely availability of statistics is the essence of the efficiency of national statistical system. Statistics with a long time gap may not be of much use for policy making. The effort to improve agricultural, industrial and other statistics at the ground level will have to be quick and only then impact of statistical data on national level would earn desired and proper result. This will help to improve the quality of life of people in the Valley for broad-based social transformation in development.
Thank you.
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The National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Second Amendment) Bill, 2016 is a very important Bill in the context of engineering education in India at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels and in the context of research. The Bill was first introduced in the year 2007. The motto behind this Bill is for giving national importance to certain institutes of engineering and science so that they can provide quality education, both at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels of engineering, and do research work in the frontal areas of engineering.
The Bill was first amended in 2012. In 2007, 20 such institutions run by different societies across the country were included and were mentioned in the first schedule. In 2012, when the first amendment was done, another 10 institutions run by different societies were included and added to those in the first schedule. At that time, another five IISER – that is, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research – were incorporated and mentioned in the second schedule. Another institute, Indian Institute of Science Technology and Research in Shibpur, was mentioned in the third schedule. All these endeavours are very good in promoting engineering education. Recently, in 2016, two new IISERs were incorporated to correct the regional imbalance after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana – one in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and another in Berhampur in Odisha. So the endeavours for promoting engineering education and moreover, to correct the regional imbalance in terms of institutes of national importance, by the Government are very good. At present there are a total of 31 NITs and five IISERs and two more will be included in the Bill, bringing the number of IISERs to seven. All these are welcome approaches. But my humble submission in the floor of the House is regarding my points of concern.
The first point of concern is regarding the quality of education. The prime focus of the Government should be to provide substantial amount of finance to these institutions. As far as my information goes, the global ranking of these NITs is between 3,500 to 4,000, that is, far down in the list and the global ranking of the IITs – that is, only IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay – is between 400 and 450. Only the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore is ranked between 300 and 350. So, in the global ranking, we are far behind and in the Asian context, the ranks of the NITs is not even within 1,000. In the Asian raking too, even IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi are within 300. So my humble submission to the Minister and the Government is that there should be an expert committee which should monitor the declining quality of education in India and address the issue of bridging the huge gap in the ranking of Indian institutes with respect to the world’s top ones, both in the context of the global ranking and the Asian ranking. There should also be a committee to monitor the quality of education in the NITs. The 31 NITs should be ranked, and then efforts should be made to address the gaps in quality. The faculty from one NIT should be moved to some other NIT, students from one NIT should be allowed to go to another NIT, etc. so that the parity of engineering education in the country is maintained. The next point of concern is regarding research work. The Minister has said that the purpose of the IISERs is mainly to focus on research work. So, does the Government have any report on how many research papers are submitted by the engineering students in these institutions each year in Indian and international journal?
The second thing of concern is this: there are several scientific programmes and scientific competitions in the country; now, how many students from the NITs and the IITs participate in these engineering competitions, and are there records on that or not? This is very important to know with respect to research work. We all know and we appreciate the research work by our scientists in space technology, research work done by the DRDO. So all our engineering faculty should do a lot of research work.
The third point is regarding the long-standing problem of brain drain in India. We all know that every year a large number of students passing from these institutions go abroad and do their research work there and then one day we read in the newspaper or see on TV that some Indian scientist doing research work in MIT or Harvard has got the Nobel Prize in physics or chemistry. This should be stopped. We should create such an environment that all brilliant Indian students do their research work in India, and we should be proud of such institutions that bring fame to India. We should think of this. And my last humble submission to the Minister is to enquire whether the Government is thinking of any common test for engineering students before they graduate from the NITs after the eighth semester, so that the Government can get a sense of the amount of parity in engineering education in India. The Government should consider this proposal.
At the end, I want to congratulate the Minister for correcting the regional imbalance in terms of the IISERs by setting up two new ones in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. I welcome this Bill. Thank you, Sir.
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Madam, I am thankful to you for allowing me to raise this issue during Zero Hour. This is about the communal clash in Patan district of Gujarat. The police have arrested 13 people. The clash on Saturday afternoon between the Thakurs of Sunsar and neighbouring villages and the Muslims of Vagjipara caused the death of Ibrahim Khan, Lal Khan Belim and injured 20, all of whom are residents of Vagjipara.
However, those arrested are not among the 31 accused named in the FIR lodged by Rehmanbhai Alibhai Malek of Vadavali, of which Vagjipara is a part. The complaint was lodged in Chanasama police station on Saturday. After combing operations those named in the FIR could not be arrested. Some of the injured are undergoing treatment.
Though the reason for the clash has not been ascertained, according to the FIR lodged at Chanasama police station lodged by Malek, there was a verbal dispute at Vadavali High School between some thakurs and Muslims.
This incident is worrisome as it happened in the home state of the Prime Minister, and only 100 km from Ahmedabad.
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Madam, dhanyavad. CRPF, CISF, inke hathya hoti hai atankvadiyon ke haathon. Sarkar protective measures ka ailan kiya hai lekin is mein kami nahin aa rahi hai. Sarkar ne kya soch rahi hai iske bare mein un logo se baat kiya hain? Red zone ke bare mein kya sujhaav hai sarkar ke paas? Aajkal toh Sarkar NE States mein bhi baat kar rahi hain separatists se. Koi sujhaav sarkar ke paas hai ke unse baat karke unko main stream mein lane jaye. Rajnath Jo agar is mein hastakshep kare toh accha hain.
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We are discussing such an important Bill at a time where on April 7 will be celebrating the World Health Organisation Day and this year’s theme is ‘Depression – Let’s Talk’. It is showing the global importance about the psychological situation. And we are the pioneer, we can say, about dealing with mental health issues this year. This Bill is a revolutionary approach to mental healthcare and it is unique. It seems to be idealistic but not totally realistic. And it is not foolproof.
The Act of 1987 provided only general protection of people with mental illness (PMI) against indignant and cruel treatment. The Bill of 2016 talks about mental care in the broader sense or aspects, mostly dealing with human rights aspect and focusing on admissible patients. According to WHO’s international code of diseases, PMI is defined as a disorder of thinking, mood perception, orientation, memory, excluding mental retardation and including drug abuse. And in the Bill we corporate that. This is good.
Taking this in account, this Bill when it appears as an Act, will be help to change the general public attitude towards PMI persons and it will prevent public to call them lunatics and abuse them, hesitate to be associated with them and it would remove this stigma of avoiding the medical health. Instead of mental asylum – in Bengali we used to call it ‘pagla garod’ that means it is a jail for pagals; It is a very bad thing – now I suppose it will have a new dignified name. It is highly appreciable that the Bill guarantees certain human and social rights to PMI persons. Most of these concepts are of western, developed countries and they may not be feasible or suitable for implementation in our country because of budgetary constraints as well as social lifestyles.
Directive has been given in the Bill of the right to access affordable, good quality, easily accessible, minimum mental care up to district level. This right is already given in our constitution, for any patient to have access of healthcare facilities; it’s a fundamental right. I don’t know what the necessity is for emphasising this in this Bill.
NHM has already got programmes for PMIs and the proposal for the establishment of special units for them up to at least the level of districts. In West Bengal, we already have 61 such centres including in seven medical colleges and in many district hospitals, some of which are being upgraded to medical colleges. The irony is that the budgetary allocation for health would be quite insufficient for these new health programmes ventured into by the Central Government.
The most bold and acceptable issue in the Bill is the decriminalisation of suicide. Unless otherwise proven, such victims should be considered as cases of PMI. Well, it is a very bold attitude, but the Bill does not give any directives about, when the person has recovered from the effect of attempting suicide, what would be the next steps – how we would counsel them, etc. Another very good thing is about the insurance coverage. It is an appreciable gesture and it is a very important issue in such people’s lives. The problem, however, is that there are no proper guidelines about the coverage of this insurance. In the case of all other diseases, we take the amount of insurance coverage to include the sum of the cost of operation, hospitalisation, medical facilities, etc. But here proper guidelines are not there. Also, the basic thing in such cases may be counselling, something not taken into account as well.
The Executive Body of the Indian Psychological Association, the largest psychological organisation, which is present in States all over India, has some reservations and resentment regarding this Bill, though they also are quite appreciative of some parts of the Bill. They have already expressed their feelings and given representation to the honourable Minister. My opinions regarding those lacunae are more or less similar.
As it has been said by many people, five to seven per cent of Indians are mentally imbalanced, comprising of millions of people, and consisting 12 per cent of the global burden. This figure is likely to increase. Five to seven per cent among them are suffering from a severe nature of mental illness, who need admission to hospital or special care, that is, indoor care. The rest 95 per cent are looked after in OPDs or at homes and otherwise through the consultative business. The care of those majority have not been addressed in this Bill properly.
Proper guidance regarding running of the general hospital, and the indoor beds in medical colleges and district hospitals which is very niger amount usually can be used only for the emergency admissions. Why can’t we think about increasing those and taking special care because, when we are trying to streamlining these mental illnesses along with the other illnesses, why should we give a special name and special category?
There is a clause about ECT (electrocardio shock). This is concerned with the modified ECT with muscle relaxants and anesthesia. In our set up, it is only possible in tertiary care centers in the medical colleges and clinics with a special facility in most cases, and it also needs at least half-day admission. Moreover, it may be good in aesthetic sense, but, scientifically, it is neither mandatory or, is it not evidence-based to prove to be better than conventional ECT without muscle relaxants and anesthetics. Moreover, it requires an extra cost, manpower and set up. Neither it is contra-indicated in adolescent also, ie persons over nine years of age, to less than 19 years of age.
Most of the sections are dealing with the establishment of the central and state level boards. This Bill gives right to the patient about persons’ own consent regarding admission, place and type of treatment and Advanced Directive to choose a representative.Who is going to decide a person is in solid mental condition to give consent for that directive is not given in this Bill. That is a real fallacy. And the board has been given the power to decide, register or prove the authority of the directive and in need can appoint patient’s representative. Funny enough, when the disease itself defines alteration of mood, loss of power of decision making etc, the Bill doesn’t mention about who is going to certify the mental status of the person in that moment. It is sad that the person has to apprehended before hand that they may go through this.
I don’t know what is the need of a special board where most are executives from the government and officials. Highly professional people are not there. Moreover, there is a dearth of psychologists and mental health nurses in the country.
This Bill isolates the institutions and the psychologists from the other general medical practitioners and frustrates the idea of streamlining psychiatrist treatment along with the others. It should deal with the medical education, which is badly lacking in psychiatrist education. It also needs research of the psychological situation for rapists and other criminals in jail.
The Bill doesn’t address the issue of property management of the PMI persons if and when he or she is not in position to do it he or herself. It doesn’t give any direction regarding property custody of those patients.
This is the Bill which invited 124 amendments in Rajya Sabha. This implies that it should be reconsidered later on, and with a special facility for child psychologists and women.
Thank you very much.
